His eyes never left my face.
Pearce stood. He hesitated as he shoved his practically opaque lenses up the bridge of his nose. But he turned, stalked past me to the door. Derrick followed his lead.
When we were alone, Tim hitched a hip, sat on the corner of his desk. He looked so old, so tired. Like a stranger.
Not like the man I’d loved so completely only three years ago.
“Obviously,” he said, “you know where the money came from or you wouldn’t have brought it up.”
“I want to hear it from you.”
Tim closed his eyes.
I wondered what he saw in the depths of his mind when he did so.
“You sold the soldiers in your command, Tim. Men and women died so you could feel like a big shot with extra cash to throw around.”
Tim didn’t open his eyes, didn’t raise his head. “It wasn’t like that. Not at first.”
“Well, that’s the way it is now.”
Tears appeared on his lashes.
Yet, I didn’t care. “How’d you do it, Tim? Did you approach the parents? You know, the rich ones with funds to spare? Or did one of them come to you the first time asking for a favor?”
“It wasn’t like that. I was just asked to sign off on the transfer papers. That’s all.”
“That’s not all. Soldiers died. And you got the blood money to order it.”
I’d never seen Tim cry before. I refused to let myself feel moved.
“Who asked you to sign off on the papers?”
“I don’t know.”
As if I believed that one.
“It’s true, Jamie. An interdepartmental envelope came. The unsigned note said, ‘Here’s the deal, have five thousand dollars faith money.’ ”
“Did you keep the note?”
“Of course not!”
“Has it occurred to you that someone may’ve taken Brooke as payback? That’s got to be why we haven’t had a ransom demand. Because no one wants your cash, Tim. They want your kid because of what you’ve done!”
Tim groaned. “You’ve got to get her back, Jamie. You’ve got to get my baby back.”
I didn’t answer.
“Jamie?”
I paused, my fingers on the doorknob.
“Now that you know about the money,” he mumbled, “are you going to tell anybody else?”
Disgusted, I left him there, teary-eyed in his own office, scared sick about his only child, his tainted money, and his career.
By the time I reached the outer office, Barrett, two MPs, and a string of FBI agents were on their way in. I glanced at my French wristwatch. Three minutes and forty-three seconds.
Pearce and Derrick lingered beside a potted palm. Pearce looked past me, into Tim’s office. He scowled at what he saw. “What did you do to him, Jamie?”
I didn’t bother to answer.
I walked out.
Chapter 30
Kev was stable, but still unconscious.
His wife sat with him in the ICU, holding his hand as he slept. As I watched Kev’s chest rise and fall through the wide window every ICU room in this hospital seemed to have, Barrett appeared behind me. In pale imitation, the pane mirrored the pattern on his ACUs, the maple leaves on his collar, and the chocolate brown of his eyes. He looked just like he did the night we’d met. The night Brooke had been taken. Six endless days ago.
My temper had cooled since leaving Tim’s office, but not by much. As if he sensed this, Barrett said nothing to me. He just stood by me as I witnessed Kev taking one shallow breath after another.
Eventually, I said, “I can’t prove it yet. But Tim’s dirty.”
“I know.”
That got my attention away from Kev.
“I’ve had calls from soldiers’ parents,” Barrett told me. “And widows whose husbands received a sudden transfer here. Brothers and sisters have sworn their siblings replaced other soldiers who were supposed to be headed overseas. Their loved ones then died in Iraq and Afghanistan. Some seem to think there was money involved. None of them could prove it. But I will.”
The truth finally dawned on me. “That’s what you’ve been doing. Trying to prove it. That’s why Tim, Larkin, everyone around here gives you the cold shoulder.”
“Not everyone. Chaplain Pearce and I met with Beth Padilla. Her husband moved into treatment this morning. His wife and children are back home now.”
For one brief moment, I forgot everything else. All I could see was the man standing next to me. And how honorable he was.
I cleared my throat, pulled my mind back to matters at hand. “Well, a young soldier named Austen Andrew Bradley may be able to put you in touch with the proof we need.”
I told Barrett about Austen’s assertions—and his parents’ pattern of paving his way with cash.
Barrett shook his head. “Austen Andrew Bradley. Charles Chapman Brown. Don’t rich families know that names like that make more typing for us law-enforcement types?”
If Barrett meant to make me smile, he succeeded. But it was a wobbly smile. I didn’t like discussing Brown. Not before he’d put Kev in the hospital. And certainly not after.
Besides, Brown wasn’t from a rich family. Or so I assumed. In reality, though, I realized I didn’t know anything about his background.
My BlackBerry rang. Tim’s number glowed on the caller ID. Irritation sizzled through me and I nearly let the call go to voicemail. But that would’ve been too easy. And it wouldn’t have been right.
I answered my phone.
“Jamie?” Tim’s voice wavered over the connection. “I finally got the call.”
I had to draw a shaky breath before speaking to him. Otherwise, I would’ve cursed him. “What are you talking about?”
“From the kidnapper. He called. He wants me to meet him in twenty minutes.”
“After all this time? Brooke’s been missing for six days, Tim. This has to be a hoax.”
“What if it’s not? I’ve got to do it. I’ve got to do it for my baby.”
I glanced at Barrett. He’d taken a careful interest in my phone conversation. I turned my back on him, sought some distance down the corridor.
“What did the caller say, Tim? Tell me exactly.”
He repeated a convoluted set of directions that basically involved him dropping a mere $10,000 in a pillowcase, driving alone to the cemetery at the Leeds All Saints Episcopal Church, and dumping the money in the arms of the stone angel at the top of the hill.
Brooke would be waiting at his house when he got home.
“Tim, there are too many holes in that plan to count.”
“That’s what Pearce said. Jamie, we both want you to go with me.”
After the way Tim had treated me, I couldn’t believe either man thought I’d still help. However, the worst of it was that, for Brooke’s sake, we all knew I would. But not in the way Tim or Pearce supposed.
“We need to do what the FBI says about this. We—”
“No! He was very clear. I’ve got to do this, Jamie. If there’s even the smallest chance, I’ve got to do it for my daughter. If you were a mother, maybe you’d understand.”
He hung up on me.
Barrett still stood outside Kev’s room. Waiting. Watching.
“I have to go,” I told him.
I didn’t say where and I didn’t say why.
But I broke into a run as I headed for my car.
—
The Leeds All Saints Episcopal Church was exactly what an old New England church ought to be. With a soaring spire that dated to the 1720s, it sat on a little green hillock in the heart of Leeds, the town’s streets having long ago formed a spider’s web around the structure and its cemetery. In the graveyard, generations of the dead slumbered under canted tombstones. The church’s low wrought-iron fence, standing guard at the perimeter of the churchyard, seemed to stop time. Outside, the modern world had encroached on the Colonial one.
But inside the fence, nothing had changed.
Saltbox houses, standing cheek by jowl, ringed the foot of All Saints’ hill. In a dozen windows, the lights of TVs flickered as I cruised slowly past. Night had fallen as I’d kept vigil for Kev. It was completely dark now. But darkness could help me as much as anybody else.
Cars, parked bumper to bumper, vied for precious space with trash cans and mounds of last year’s leaves along streets that had once been cow paths. No dark figure lingered in any of them. No shadows skulked among the tombstones. But that didn’t mean someone wasn’t already here. To gain the tactical advantage, Tim’s caller would’ve set himself up nicely before contacting his target.
As an army officer, Tim had to know this. As a general’s daughter, I certainly did. It would take time for me to get the lay of the land.
And Brooke, if she was alive, didn’t have much time left.
I parked illegally at the mouth of an alley, kept the engine running. Headlights appeared ahead of me. A car drew near, turned onto the blacktop drive of the church.
It was Tim’s BMW.
He stopped in the church’s well-lit parking lot. He got out of his car and headed up the hill, walking the asphalt driveway to the darkened graveyard. A pale pillowcase hung limp in his hand.
I put the Taurus in gear, cut through the alley, and turned onto the winding street that snaked behind the church. Here was the cemetery’s service entrance. I’d been through it a time or two, in high school, when the ambiance of the old graveyard had seemed the perfect setting for my friends and me to terrify one another with Halloween ghost stories and snuggle close to the boys who’d brought us.
Now, on this spring night, with a waxing moon drifting through the leafless branches of the cemetery’s trees, the place seemed genuinely ominous.
I cut my lights, then eased the Taurus into the weedy tangle that grew against the all-encompassing fence. I slipped from the car. Winter-dead grass was soundless under my feet.
I crossed plots quickly, darting behind the larger monuments as I climbed the hill. Under their cover, I stopped, looked, and listened. I could hear nothing but the night breeze sighing through the naked trees, see nothing but the white tombstones standing starkly against the black graves they marked.
Tim’s angel stood on the slope above me. She kept watch on top of a shadowed crypt, her wings folded, her stone arms outstretched. I circled to approach her from the right.
Dense, overgrown shrubs reached for me as I passed close to a cluster of headstones. One shrub seemed to slant against a row of graves, an oddly straight and slender branch sticking upright from its center. As I skirted it, the ground began to crumble away at my feet.
I skittered backward with a suppressed gasp.
The blackness before me was an open grave. The shrub was a mound of fill dirt. The odd branch, a forgotten shovel.
Near the crest of the hill, I ducked behind the massive trunk of a gnarled oak. I could see Tim making his way up the path. Nothing moved in the shadows.
Tim approached the angel. Like a goddess, she stood, arms lifted in benediction. Tim raised his bundle, offered it to her.
Pop, pop, pop, pop.
Gunfire echoed off the gravestones.
I drew my Beretta, dropped low.
Bang, bang!
Muzzle flashes flared from Tim’s position. The idiot had brought a gun. He shouted, “Drop your weapon!”
Shots ricocheted off marble.
Tim dived behind a headstone, returned fire. Movement far to my left caught my eye. Our attacker fired again, this time from a new position. I fired blind, covering Tim, giving him a chance to break again. He had enough brains to take up a new position if only he would use them.
He did.
But instead of seeking safety in the darkness, he made for his car.
The bright lights of the parking lot made him an easy target. But no one fired. Maybe our assailant was out of ammo. Maybe he’d paused to reload. I didn’t know.
I didn’t stick around to find out.
As Tim raced from the parking lot, I faded backward, hid behind an obelisk.
I could just make out the dark gleam of my rented black Taurus below me. As I hurried toward it, I stuck to the shadows, cutting an uneven pattern that kept clear of obvious escape routes. All the while I listened for signs of life in the cemetery.
I heard nothing but the chirp of a solitary cricket.
But as I neared the open grave, someone jumped me.
He was bigger than me. Broader, too. And he gripped something in his hands.
It was long and lean, with a wide flange on one end. Starlight glinted along the edge, silver on steel. And I realized what he held.
But not before he swung.
Instinct made me duck.
Still, the blade of the shovel caught me. It bit into my hairline, sliced into my scalp. The impact threw me to the ground.
The whole world spun. I scrambled to my hands and knees, blinded and sick, but on the slope of the hillside, I had no idea which way was up. And which way my attacker waited.
If he grabbed up the shovel, if he swung it again, I’d be dead.
A thrashing through the bushes had me hoping he was on the run, but in any case, I needed to get out of there. I grabbed a headstone, cold and gritty under my hands. I pulled myself to my feet. The horizon tilted. I let gravity pick the downhill direction, followed it on tripping feet.
I reached the old wrought-iron fence, grabbed the uprights in my hands. I flipped over the railing headfirst and landed on my back in the weeds. The impact reverberated through my skull, shaking loose any sense I had left.
I tried to lift my head. Tried to look for my car. Its double image danced several yards away.
I climbed again to my feet. Headlights appeared down the street. Tim? Had he got smart and called the FBI at last? Before I could decide, another thought ricocheted inside my damaged head.
He’s coming back to finish the job.
I lurched toward the Taurus, fumbled at my pockets, searching for my keys. Where had I left them? In the car? In my pocket? Either way, I’d been stupid, taking the kind of chances that could leave me dead.
My car was too far away anyway. I stumbled, fell face first in the tall grass. And that’s where I lay.
His car drew nearer. But it wasn’t a car. It was a truck.
Or so I thought.
I couldn’t keep my eyes open.
Headlights swept over me, making me squint, and that hurt even worse. I knew I was drifting in and out of consciousness now. And that couldn’t be good.
“Jamie!”
Some part of me recognized Barrett’s voice.
I didn’t want him to see me like this. I tried to rise, didn’t get farther than all fours before my limbs began to tremble. I would’ve fallen on my face again, but Barrett was with me, kneeling beside me, gripping my shoulders. He eased me to the ground, rolled me onto my back.
“Lie still,” he ordered.
He touched the gash on my forehead. The contact nearly knocked the wind out of me. I heard a sharp intake of breath, realized it must be mine, and struggled to sit up.
“Don’t move.”
Barrett’s voice was commanding. He shrugged off his ACU coat, stripped off the T-shirt under it. He rolled the shirt into a ball, pressed it to my head with one hand. His other was already working his cell phone.
I began to babble. “He fired on Tim. He may still be armed. He grabbed a shovel from a grave, hit me with it.”
But he, I realized, had been in two places at once. In position to fire on Tim. And in my path to take me out.
“Jamie? Have you lost consciousness?”
“I think so.”
“Thrown up?”
“No.”
“Are you seeing double?”
“I don’t know. I’ve got my eyes shut.”
Barrett didn’t suggest the obvious. His call had gone through. In terse words, he told someone what had happened to me. Probably Agent in Charge Wolczek. I couldn�
�t say for sure because I blacked out again.
When I came to, I heard sirens in the distance.
Barrett was at my side.
“Take it easy,” he murmured. “An ambulance is on its way. So is the FBI.”
“No.”
Actually, I was glad they were. I just didn’t want them to find me like this: flat on my back in last year’s weeds. So I tried to sit up. I succeeded, but the world tilted to the right. I nearly fell over with it.
Barrett wrapped a hand around my arm, pulled me upright. “Honey, you need to take it easy. You’re bleeding profusely and I think you have a concussion. We need to get you to the hospital.”
But the fear wouldn’t let me go. Charles Chapman Brown had come to the Pines when no one had known we were there and he’d found Kev instead. I couldn’t let him get to me where everyone would expect me. “No. Hospital.”
And that said, I lost consciousness again.
Chapter 31
Barrett was on his cell again. He had it tucked between his ear and his chin. I lay against his chest, his ACU coat coarse against my cheek. He had an arm wrapped around me, holding me to him, and pressing his T-shirt in place on my forehead. We were riding in his truck.
And bumping along the driveway to his house.
Into his phone, he said, “Bring your sewing kit.”
He hung up.
Barrett circled behind the house. My glasses were long gone, but if I squinted, I could make out a good-sized yard and a barn cloaked in shadow. Barren pines stood at the edge of the property like sentries.
A wide porch stretched across the backside of the house. The light in the window beside the door was a welcome beacon. Barrett hit the brakes a little hard. I pitched forward, certain my head would snap off at the neck. Barrett slid from the truck and tried to take me with him.
I batted his hand away. “I can do it.”
My toes found the running board. But my knees buckled under me. Barrett caught me around the waist.
He didn’t let me go.
“I can walk.” At least, I hoped I could.
Three steps led onto Barrett’s back porch.
They felt like three thousand.
I stumbled through the door, found myself in Barrett’s kitchen. He yanked a ladder-back chair away from a well-worn table and guided me into it. Gratefully, I sat.
The Kill List Page 21